Time to get down to business

Letters to the editor on Bob Filner's resignation

Time for city to get back to business

With the resolution of our civic crisis having begun Friday afternoon, it is time to get San Diego’s business back on track. The cost of dysfunction has been high; the value of rebuilding our momentum is incalculable.

The business community came together to demand Mayor Filner’s resignation Aug. 1. Today, an even broader group comes together to envision the necessary qualities of the next mayor. Our next leader must have the insight and commitment to make tough decisions and find actionable solutions. Our next leader needs to possess an innate ability to build consensus and reinforce a collaborative spirit. Our next leader should have the vision and dedication to tackle the complexities of stabilizing and energizing a growing economy. Our next leader needs to have the character and integrity to serve the greater good and uphold the reputation of San Diego and the values of San Diegans.

Our next leader needs to move San Diego beyond the damage that was done — gutting the tourism marketing industry, disbanding the Film Commission, backing developers into untenable positions and driving business away. For many years we came together to solve the city’s problems, restore faith in city leadership and make San Diego an attractive place for people to live, work and visit. Today we need to continue down that path and get business back on track to help create jobs.

Our brave female friends and colleagues took the difficult first step in removing a great obstacle. Now it is time to join together to move forward — to restore the luster and realize the potential of our great city. We can begin by electing a new leader with the character and ability to move San Diego forward.

It’s time for that kind of leadership. It’s time to get back to business.

Inmate says Filner not in same boat

I am an inmate in the San Diego County jail. I have been sentenced to 80 years to life in state prison for homicide.

I have stayed current with the Bob Filner episode, and it truly was a shame that Filner had remained in office.

I do not understand our legal system. How deep a person’s pockets are or their social status surely plays a part. I wish I had a few bucks to retain proper and competent council at the city’s expense.

Guilty or not, the accusations against Filner alone make me question him.

I love this city regardless of my trials and tribulations.

Ruben Jack

Carranza Sanchez

San Diego

No one to blame but Bob Filner

Good riddance, Bob Filner. You have sullied the office of mayor of San Diego and the city with your reprehensible behavior and abusive actions. To blame the media and City Council for a “lynch mob mentality” is both offensive and absurd.

You voluntarily agreed to mediation and to resign. You’ve had your due process. Don’t blame the citizens of San Diego, the members of the council or anyone else for actions for which you and you alone are responsible.

Due process will continue in civil and possibly criminal actions in our court system. Only time will tell the outcomes.

It’s time to move forward. Let’s elect a mayor who will lead our great city and re-establish confidence in the office of mayor.

Karen Krusen

San Diego

Will Filner face charges, lawsuit?

So now that Bob Filner has resigned, a decision that will most likely cost San Diego taxpayers millions of dollars, I have two questions.

First, when can we expect multiple misdemeanor criminal charges to be filed against Filner for sexual battery, which is defined in the California Penal Code as any unwanted touching for purposes of sexual gratification, and secondly, when will a prominent attorney come forth to represent the taxpayers of San Diego in a class-action lawsuit against Filner, in order to repay the money spent on his salary for the weeks (or months) he has either been in hiding or therapy, as well as his attorney fees and settlement costs of his many victims (which may well run in the millions).

The idea that Filner may actually make money through this travesty (via his mayoral salary and no requirement for personal lawyer fees) is beyond reprieve.

James Smith

San Diego

City can start to heal; Goldsmith did well

The resignation of Mayor Filner allows the city to begin healing. The bipartisan rebuke of the mayor’s plight shows that attitudes toward

egregious conduct can

rise above political concerns. The city shall rise again.

Our long, dark night is over. Goodbye, Mayor Filner.

While we have learned much from your brief

tenure, there is more that you need to learn. Thankfully, you will have time for that learning process.

I feel it would be remiss if the exemplary conduct of our city attorney is not mentioned. While I often cringed at the treatment he received from the mayor, his professionalism never wavered. He is

a wonderful steward of the city’s legal matters.

In a profession that is often mocked, he imparts a meritorious character that is undeniable.

Bobbie J. Allen

San Diego

Just the thought of pay is outrageous

San Diego taxpayers should be outraged at the City Council for even considering providing any money for the defense, resignation or pension of accused sexual abuser Mayor Bob Filner.

Let him pay for his errors in judgment out of his own pocket.

Bill Berry

Ocean Beach

Progressive sees future without Filner

As chairman of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party, the Aug. 23 editorial, “Progressives Betrayed By Filner,” put me in the unusual position of agreeing with most of the piece.

While I represent Progressive Democrats around the state, I can only speak for myself. I am someone who has walked precincts for Filner campaigns and built a respect for him over many years, but also worked with some of the women who have accused him and respect them at least as much as I respected Bob Filner. But the picture is much larger than Bob Filner.

Progressives and Democrats have been on the defensive against a media that is owned by big corporations that take power from the people and hand it over to the wealthy while convincing the electorate it is for their own good. Those of us who call ourselves Progressives have no such media “soapbox” from which to rebut their arguments.

After decades of corporate rule in San Diego, we saw things like tax money going to hotel owners ostensively to promote tourism while our parks suffered.

We saw city property paid for by the taxpayers being given 40-year sweetheart leases for hotels and yacht clubs.

We had a lot of hope that Bob Filner would return San Diego to the people. We did see progress during Mayor Filner’s short time in office.

Mayor Filner has tainted the name of Progressives and Democrats by abusing women and workers.

San Diego Progressives need to get the word out that we still believe in social justice and economic justice and that those are issues that must not die with one person. We need to look at who will be running for mayor and support a candidate who will work for the good of all San Diegans.

Michael Thaller

Bonita

Edit on Progressives hits the mark

Thanks so much for this excellent editorial “Progressives betrayed by Filner” (Aug. 23). I found it definitely one of the most perceptive, even-tempered, and timely editorials that I’ve ever read from the U-T.

Robert Burns

Ocean Beach

Stunned at apparent about-face

Dear Bob, I hope you read this. San Diego did not need to hear an arrogant, defensive rant about how you were crucified by a lynch mob and justification of it.

You, yourself apologized for your actions against these women you “offended” a couple of weeks ago, then you and the handful of your supporters Friday turned face on those apologies by saying there was no legal proof that ever happened! Are you kidding us? Later Bob!

Bo Mormann

La Mesa

Clinton was worse than Filner

Mayor Bob Filner is small potatoes compared to the master harasser of all, former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton made unwanted advances to Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, and countless others while in office, but lied about it. At least Filner had the fortitude to tell the truth and seek help.

Anyone who called for Filner to resign who did not do so for Clinton is politically motivated, and a hypocrite.

Evans Kontopuls

San Diego

What will Filner do next?

So, when does Filner start his new job as a lobbyist for one of the unions?

Tom Basinski

Chula Vista

City’s ‘nightmare is finally over’

Thirty-nine years ago President Ford declared that “our long national nightmare is finally over” with President Nixon resigning in disgrace, ending Nixon’s ”Imperial Presidency.”

Back then President Ford pardoned former President Nixon unconditionally. The American public resented President Ford for pardoning Nixon for all crimes related to Watergate and the intentional cover-up.

Regardless the Filner’s resignation, San Diegans and City Hall paid a heavy price with national headlines and embarrassment.

Kevin Crum

Oceanside

Not much of a legacy

“I didn’t sexually harrass anybody.”

This lie pretty much encapsulates this mayor’s legacy. Deaf, dumb and blind regarding his lecherous actions to the end. How else do you treat women the way Filner did unless you are totally out of contact with who are, and your own disgusting behavior?

Oh, and he’s a hero because according to him, “I’ve faced lynch mobs.” He has the gall to call those who demanded his resignation a lynch mob. Well, I suppose there is truth to the fact that almost anyone who was brought aware of his behavior wanted some sort of retribution. One can only wonder why anybody would want his name and reputation to be dragged through the mud, when, in the end, based upon his own actions, he would resign anyway. How stupid can you be? Or in Filner’s case, how self-delusional can one man be.

To the end, a disgusting display of, using his own words, hubris. Hubris and power monger, oh I almost forgot, a serial womanizer. Amazing that none of these ladies had any man to whom they told of these violations, and he was never confronted.

Well, he’s been confronted now and one can only hope, based on his unrepentant speech, that his pocket book will also be severely affected negatively.

Greg Morrill

Escondido

A lesson learned

The lesser of the evils? Perhaps. We each have to choose which mountain to die on. This is ours and with a lesson learned. So it is done — so it shall be.

Fran Lindsay

Bonita

More recognition for city attorney

San Diego should give big time thanks to City Attorney Jan Goldsmith for shepherding Filner’s demise. His professionalism, knowledge of the law and integrity go beyond the pale.

Thankfully, this nightmare is over.

Rodgers T. Smith

El Cajon

Scandal must spur people to speak up

I hope that the elected enablers-in-charge who knew of Filner’s well-documented travesties might question their go-along-to-get-along-at-any-price political playbook. This kick-the-can-up-the-road mentality must stop.

The U-T previously published a “Pyramid of Shame” list of some of these individuals.

While we can’t turn back the clock, perhaps this horrific experience will embolden us all to speak up when terrible incidents occur, despite our personal agenda.

It’s called leadership — with a dash of righteous indignation thrown in.

Leah Swearingen

San Diego

Filner process has been un-American

It was trial-by-media for Mayor Filner. Completely devoid of due process, and so un-American.

Leo E. Laurence

North Park

Beware of those seeking to fill the void

Bob Filner’s illicit behavior began long before becoming San Diego’s mayor at age 70.

How ironic that someone who openly boasted about his involvement in the civil rights movement would become the epitome of incivility, given his long history of abusive behavior while serving on the school board, City Council and in Congress. This should have been a clear indication Filner was temperamentally unfit to become the city’s chief executive.

Also sharing the blame, however, are those high-profile civic leaders and Filner supporters who allowed their implausible denial of his record to enable him to take his reckless behavior into the mayor’s office.

Unfortunately, in today’s world of politics, partisan conformity far too often trumps personal integrity and responsibility. And since Filner’s exit as mayor will require the city to elect a new mayor within one year of his taking office, hopefully, during this process, the voting citizens of San Diego will be wary of those charlatans who will offer themselves as saviors of a political crisis they helped create.

Jim Redhead

San Diego

Taxpayers now grabbed in a headlock

Steve Breen’s editorial cartoon Aug. 22 was clever but incomplete. While the “persona” of lawsuits and investigations does have Filner in a headlock, unfortunately he in turn has the San Diego taxpayers in a headlock. Ack!

Deborah Attwood

Kensington

Filner needs to have seat in the hallway

Bob Filner was my world history professor at SDSU in 1974. During finals week I mismanaged my schedule and had to take his final exam on a day other than what was assigned. He had forewarned the students that if that we couldn’t organize our lives we would have to sit out in the hallway and take the test. A form of humiliation, I guess.

It is now your turn, Bob Filner, to sit out in the hallway for mismanaging your disorganized life. It is now time for you to face the public humiliation you so rightly deserve.

For the record I earned a “C” in Bob Filner’s world history class. Bob has earned an “F” for his record.